The death of star musician Prince has prompted reflections that are many their life – including their spiritual faith. Prince, who had been raised as A seventh-day adventist, became a Jehovah’s Witness as a grown-up and went to solutions in the house state of Minnesota.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, whom constitute simply lower than 1% of U.S. grownups, are recognized for their door-to-door proselytism. But people in this denomination, which includes its origins in 19th-century America, will also be unique in a lot of alternative methods. Listed here are a facts that are few Jehovah’s Witnesses in the usa today, centered on Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape learn:

Demographics

Jehovah’s Witnesses are one of the most racially and ethnically diverse groups that are religious America. A maximum of four-in-ten people in the team are part of any one racial and cultural history: 36% are white, 32% are Hispanic, 27% are black colored and 6% are another competition or race that is mixed.

Most Jehovah’s Witnesses – roughly two-thirds (65%) – are women, while just 35% are males. Christians around the world are more inclined to be ladies than males, but this sex space is specially big within the context of U.S. Christian teams. For example, 54% of U.S. Catholics are ladies.

Weighed against other U.S. spiritual teams, Jehovah’s Witnesses tend become less educated. An excellent most of adult Jehovah’s Witnesses (63%) don’t have any significantly more than a highschool diploma|school that is high}, weighed against, for instance, 43% of evangelical Protestants and 37% of mainline Protestants.

Jehovah’s Witnesses have low retention price in accordance with other U.S. spiritual teams. Among all U.S. grownups who have been raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses, two-thirds (66%) no further determine utilizing the team. In comparison, about two-thirds of these have been raised as evangelical Protestants (65%) and Mormons (64%) nevertheless state these are typically people in those groups that are respective.

From the flip part, about two-thirds (65%) of current adult Jehovah’s Witnesses are converts – like Prince, they certainly were raised an additional faith.

Spiritual opinions and techniques

Jehovah’s Witnesses identify as Christians, however their opinions will vary from other Christians in a few means. As an example, they show that Jesus could be the son of Jesus but is maybe not element of a Trinity.

By old-fashioned measures of spiritual dedication, Jehovah’s Witnesses are probably the most extremely spiritual U ukrainian dating.S. that is major religious. Nine-in-ten Jehovah’s Witnesses (90%) state faith is vital inside their life, while comparable stocks state they have confidence in Jesus with absolute certainty (90per cent) the Bible could be the term of Jesus (94%).

Our study bought at minimum two other interesting means in which Jehovah’s Witnesses stick out inside their opinions. The traditional image of which is challenged by the denomination’s teaching for one, while half of Jehovah’s Witnesses say they believe in heaven, very few (7%) say they believe in hell. The share of all of the U.S. Christians whom rely on hell is 10 times bigger (70%). And most Jehovah’s Witnesses (83%) state their faith could be the one real faith ultimately causing eternal life; just about three-in-ten U.S. Christians (29%) think this about their particular faith that is religious.

Compared to U.S. Christians general, Jehovah’s Witnesses are specially expected to state they attend spiritual solutions one or more times a week (85%, compared to 47% of most U.S. Christians), pray daily (90% of Jehovah’s Witnesses vs. 68% of most U.S. Christians) and – not interestingly – share their faith with other people one or more times a week (76% vs. 26%). In addition they are far more likely than U.S. Christians general to be involved in prayer or scripture research teams and also to read scripture at the least regular, among other spiritual practices.

Personal and governmental views

Like many other very spiritual Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses have a tendency to simply simply simply take conservative roles on social problems. Each) for example, three-quarters (75%) say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, while similar shares oppose same-sex marriage and say homosexuality should be discouraged by society (76%. Approximately three-quarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses (74%) additionally reject development, saying people have actually constantly existed within their form that is present since start of the time.

But Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t commonly advocate for those opinions when you look at the governmental sphere. The denomination shows that its users should stay politically abstain and neutral from voting or taking part in “any action to alter governments.”

This might be mirrored inside our polling. Three-quarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses (75%) state these are typically governmental independents who do maybe maybe maybe not lean toward either party that is major. Half (50%) decrease to resolve a concern about governmental ideology (i.e., if they describe their views that are political conservative, moderate or liberal). and a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses (64%), whenever expected if they’re registered to vote, state they’re not registered or decrease to resolve issue.

Note: the very last two paragraphs beneath the “Demographics” part were added.